Treatment services
Victoria State
Alcohol and drug-related episodes of care in Victoria.
Last update: 24 April 2024
Metro/Regional
Alcohol and drug-related episodes of care in Victoria.
Last update: 24 April 2024
Local Government Areas (LGA)
Alcohol and drug-related episodes of care in Victoria.
Last update: 24 April 2024
Definitions
Drug categories
- Alcohol = alcohol involvement, with or without other drugs/substances.
- Amphetamines (Any) = all amphetamines (e.g. amphetamine, methamphetamine).
- Analgesics = pain relief medications, such as aspirin or paracetamol, and other non-opioid analgesics.
- Antidepressants = antidepressant, such as citalopram or sertraline.
- Antipsychotics = antipsychotic, such as amisulpride or quetiapine.
- Benzodiazepines = benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam or diazepam (may include drugs that act like benzodiazepines, such as zolpidem).
- Cannabis = cannabis or hashish.
- GHB (Gamma-hydroxybutyrate) = GHB
- Hallucinogens = hallucinogen, including LSD or mushrooms.
- Heroin = any heroin.
- Illicit Drugs (Any): indicates case where any illicit drug was primarily involved in the event, including heroin, opioids, amphetamines, cannabis, stimulants, hallucinogens, inhalants, or other illicit drugs not explicitly mentioned.
- Inhalants = any volatile substance, inhalant or solvent, such as chrome or petrol.
- Opioids = opioid, including opioid analgesics such as morphine or oxycodone.
- Other Sedatives = a sedative (excluding opioids and benzodiazepines) was involved in the event, such as barbiturates, anaesthetics or ketamine.
- Other Stimulants = stimulants, including cocaine or ecstasy.
- Pharmaceutical Drugs (Any): indicates case where a prescription drug was primarily involved in the event, including antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, analgesics, sedatives, pharmacotherapy, steroids or another medication (prescribed or non-prescribed) not explicitly mentioned.
- Pharmacotherapy = synthetic opioids, such as those used in opioid replacement therapy, including methadone and buprenorphine.
Service Stream summary description
For more detailed information about the service stream, please see the methods document (the document opens in a new tab).
- Counselling – incorporate face-to-face, online and telephone services for individuals and, in some instances, their families, as well as group counselling and day programs.
- Non-residential withdrawal – support people to safely withdraw from alcohol and other drug dependence in community settings, in coordination with medical services such as hospitals and general practitioners.
- Residential withdrawal – support clients to safely withdraw from alcohol and other drug dependence in a supervised residential or hospital facility.
- Therapeutic day rehabilitation – a non-residential treatment option that offers an intensive structured program over a period of weeks, which includes both counselling and a range of other elements designed to build life skills and promote general wellbeing, such as financial management and nutrition.
- Residential rehabilitation – provides a safe and supportive environment for people who are not able to reduce or overcome their drug use issues through other programs.
- Care recovery & coordination – support people with complex needs to navigate treatment and access appropriate services.
- Ante & Post-natal support – provides specialist clinical services to pregnant women and their infants.
- Bridging support – regular contact which aims to support client engagement, retention, motivation and stability while clients wait for assessment and treatment.
- Brief intervention (incl. single sessions with family) – education and advice that aims to achieve a short-term reduction in harm associated with AOD use.
- Client education program – provides targeted information, education and awareness around safer drug use.
- Comprehensive assessment – supports client pathways to all Victorian services, inclusive of youth, adult, residential and non-residential, Aboriginal, state and commonwealth-funded AOD services.
- Day program (Youth) / Outdoor therapy (Youth) – Youth services offer treatment and support to vulnerable young people who are aged 12 to 25 years, and their friends and family, to help address their alcohol and other drug use issues.
- Follow up – Make follow-up contact with standard clients at three and 12 months post-treatment exit to either track progress or support re-engagement.
- Intake – assist people to navigate the AOD service system and engage proactively with treatment providers on behalf of, and in partnership with, AOD clients and their families
- Outreach – engage with vulnerable people experiencing harm from AOD who are not engaged with mainstream health, social support or AOD treatment services. Including, provide sterile injecting equipment, information, education and referral to a range of health and social services.
- Residential pre-admission engagement – Preparing individuals for the withdrawal process includes informing them about the facility, program, withdrawal process and expectations.
- Supported accommodation – supports young people who are in need of accommodation and wish to remain abstinent after completing AOD withdrawal.
Gender categories
- Null refers to either missing or other gender.
Age group categories
- Null refers to missing age
Methods
Scope
AODstats provides the ability to track trends of acute harms at the community level, and help inform policy and strategies to intervene and minimise the impact or spread of these harms.
This information provides a convenient, interactive, statistical resource for policy planners, drug service providers, health professionals and other key stakeholders, interested in the harms relating to alcohol and other drug use in Victoria.
Data Analysis
For further information on the analysis, please see the methods document (the document opens in a new tab).
- Data indicator: Victorian Alcohol and Drug Treatment Episodes of Care.
- Data Source: Victorian Alcohol and Drug Collection – (VADC) .
- Details of data analysis: The data presented in AODstats are derived from client level data from drug treatment services, which provide a range of assessment, treatment and support services to adults and young people who have alcohol and/or drug use problems, and to their families and carers. The system has recently updated, hence AODstats includes data from Alcohol and Drug Information System (ADIS) up to 2017/18 and VADC (from 2018/19). Therefore, it is important to note any disjunct in the time series. Data presented is based upon residential location.
Metrics presented
- Numbers: cell sizes less than 5 are obfuscated in line with ethics and data custodian requirements. Some other categorical data may also be obfuscated if a category can be calculated by subtracting any remaining categories from the total.
- Rates: rates are calculated in several ways. These include crude rates, age-specific rates and age and gender-standardised rates. Rates are calculated using the most recent mid-year ERP data (where practical). For visualisations and download sheets, crude rates are calculated for the total population, males and females. Age-specific rates are calculated for age groups in visualisations and download sheets. Rates reported on the AODstats population pyramid visualisation are age and gender-standardised rates. Crude rates, which can allow for adjustment of population sizes across different areas, however these do not adjust for certain demographic attributes (specifically age and sex). The advantage to using crude rates and age-specific rates are particularly important from a policy perspective, to understand what is influencing the rates. For example, it is important for policy and services to be aware if an area has more men and younger people. However, the use of age/sex-standardised rates in the population pyramids, allows for specific age and gender comparisons across areas to be made more accurately.
- Population estimates: ABS estimated resident population (ERP) on age, sex and statistical local areas is used throughout AODstats based on calendar year of data. For financial year datasets, the earliest year is used (e.g. 2012/13, 2012 ERP is used).
Limitations
There are limitations to using administrative data for purposes other than what it was originally intended when collected. This includes:
- Incomplete or missing data and inadequate coding.
- Some drugs are already in pre-determined drug categories and it is not possible to group them differently or include more specific drug information. In addition, sometimes drug information is not collected and therefore surrogate measures are used. The limitation to this is there will be events that are missed when they should be included and conversely events included when they should not be.
- Location information is dependent upon dataset and the majority of times LGA is the smallest area provided, and sometimes only state based data is available.
- Crude rates are used, which do not allow for certain demographic attributes (age and gender) to be compared accurately across areas, and also rates based on small numbers can produce unstable results. However, we have used age-specific rates for age groups, which does allow for age-specific comparisons. We have also used age and gender-standardised rates in the population pyramid.